Okay, I remember the Interim WAC conference commish talking about expansion back in 2012 along with the talks about MVFC could merge to form a WAC FBS conference to save the WAC. He talked about several D2 schools west of the Mississippi River were interested in joining the WAC. We found 2 already with Grand Canyon and California Baptist. He did mentioned some of the D2 schools had football teams. The only schools that I know of who have done some upgrading for their stadiums or to build a new stadium that could move up, or ones that could get tractions to upgrade the stadiums that they are using for the cities they play in. The schools that I can think of that have done some work or spent money are Dixie State, Central Washington, Colorado Mesa, Azusa Pacific, West Texas A&M, Texas A&M-Commerce, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Tarleton State, and some others.

There seems to be rumors that Cal. State-Los Angeles could get an invite to the WAC now since Cal. Baptist got invites. Western Washington is another one that could get an invite. If UTRGV, Chicago State and UMKC leaves? We could see a true Western Conference formed by these schools.

I'm not saying you're wrong or that Madison does not actually desire to keep the UW schools down in DIII.

But that reasoning is pure bunk. Minnesota provides the perfect counter-example. All of the MN public schools are DII (except god-awful Morris, which should be a private liberal arts college anyway ...), yet the Gophers have never lost a kid they asked to walk-on to a MN public school, initially. Sure, the kid might transfer out if getting passed up on the depth chart.

The real threats they have to worry about (they being Minnesota, Wisconsin) are the FCS Dakota teams, FCS UNI, and NIU (moreso Wisconsin).

WIU also not far from Madison and FCS. While going to the Big U and walking on may feed an atheltes' ego, playing D2 or FCS with a scholarship and actually getting playing time instead of being a tacking dummy makes alot more sense

It's nice to see another Ohio school reuniting in the G-MAC. Maybe th G-MAC and Mountain East could arrange an amicable agreement to allow Notre Dame and Urbana to go to the G-MAC in exchange for the three West Virginia schools (get the old WVIAC band back together?). If they need another football school toss in Kentucky Wesleyan.